Concept

Zen

Also known as: Chan Buddhism, Chán, Sŏn, Thiền, Zen Buddhism

The contemplative school of Mahāyāna Buddhism that developed in China from the 6th century CE as **Chán** (a Chinese transliteration of the Sanskrit *dhyāna*, meditation), spread to Korea as **Sŏn**, to Vietnam as **Thiền**, and to Japan as **Zen** (the form by which the school is best known in the West). Centers contemplative practice in *zazen* — seated meditation — as the principal Buddhist activity, on a par with formal study of the texts. Distinguished from other Mahāyāna schools by its insistence on direct transmission *outside the scriptures*, *not founded on words*, *pointing directly to the human mind*, *seeing one's nature and becoming Buddha*. The two major Japanese Zen schools — **Sōtō** (founded by Dōgen) and **Rinzai** (associated with Hakuin and the kōan tradition) — between them carry most of contemporary Zen. In the 20th century Zen became one of the most consequential Buddhist traditions in the West, partly through D.T. Suzuki's voluminous English-language writings and partly through the postwar Japanese teachers who established communities on the West Coast and in New York.

The word Zen is the Japanese reading of the Chinese 禪, Chán, which is itself a Chinese transliteration of the Sanskrit dhyāna — meditation. The school began in China; the early traditional histories trace it to [[bodhidharma|Bodhidharma]], an Indian monk who arrived in China in the early 6th century, and through a lineage of six early patriarchs to [[huineng|Huineng]] (638–713), the southern-school sixth patriarch whose teaching is recorded in the Platform Sutra. Modern scholarship complicates parts of this lineage as later constructed, but the historical existence of an early Chinese contemplative school distinct from the more textual Buddhist schools is well established.

What Zen actually is

A famous four-line summary, often attributed to [[bodhidharma|Bodhidharma]] though probably later:

教外別傳 Kyōge betsuden — A separate transmission outside the scriptures

不立文字 Furyū monji — Not founded on words and letters

直指人心 Jikishi ninshin — Pointing directly to the human mind

見性成佛 Kenshō jōbutsu — Seeing one’s nature, becoming Buddha

The verses are characteristic of Zen rhetoric — provocatively dismissive of the textual tradition while themselves being a careful piece of textual instruction. The point is not that Zen is anti-intellectual; classical Zen produced enormous textual corpora. The point is that the textual study, in Zen’s view, is in service of direct experience, not its substitute.

The principal practice is zazen — seated Zen — the discipline of [[zazen|seated meditation]]. In Sōtō Zen this is shikantaza (just sitting); the practitioner sits with no object of focus, present to whatever arises without grasping or pushing away. In Rinzai Zen, zazen is often combined with the kōan curriculum — sustained engagement with a paradoxical question or story (Mu; the sound of one hand clapping; what was your face before your parents were born) which is held in the mind across long periods of practice and which functions to break habitual cognitive patterning.

The schools

Sōtō Zen — founded in Japan by Dōgen (1200–1253), who studied in China and brought back the [[soto-zen|Caodong]] tradition. Shikantaza practice; the Genjōkōan and the Shōbōgenzō as Dōgen’s central works. Dōgen’s writing is among the most philosophically dense in any Buddhist tradition and has only begun to be fully read in the West.
Rinzai Zen — descended from the Chinese Linji school via the Japanese Eisai (1141–1215) and shaped decisively by [[hakuin|Hakuin Ekaku]] (1686–1769), the great kōan systematizer. The standard kōan curriculum derives from Hakuin’s reform.
Ōbaku Zen — a smaller third Japanese line, established in the 17th century by Chinese refugee monks; carried elements of Pure Land practice into a Zen context.
Korean Sŏn and Vietnamese Thiền — the parallel Korean and Vietnamese forms, with their own significant histories and contemporary teachers (in Korea, the Jogye Order; in Vietnam, [[thich-nhat-hanh|Thich Nhat Hanh]]‘s [[plum-village|Plum Village tradition]] stands within the Thiền lineage even as it has its own innovations).

Zen in the West

Zen reached the West principally through several waves:

[[dt-suzuki|D.T. Suzuki]] (1870–1966) — the prolific Japanese lay scholar whose English-language writings from the 1920s onward introduced an enormous Western readership to Zen, especially Rinzai. Influenced Merton, Jung, the Beats, Cage, and many others.
[[shunryu-suzuki|Shunryū Suzuki]] (1904–1971; no relation to D.T.) — Sōtō teacher who founded [[san-francisco-zen-center|San Francisco Zen Center]] in 1962. Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (1970) is one of the most widely read Zen books in English.
Robert Aitken, Maezumi Roshi, Eido Tai Shimano, Bernie Glassman, and the wider 1960s–80s American teaching wave that established lineages on both coasts.
[[thich-nhat-hanh|Thich Nhat Hanh]] — Vietnamese Thiền teacher whose [[plum-village|Plum Village tradition]] has been one of the most consequential Zen presences in the West since the 1980s.

The Western lineages have not been without crisis — several major American teachers have been credibly accused of sexual or financial misconduct, and the contemporary American Zen world is in extended reckoning with these. [[0mn1one|The platform]]‘s posture: take the practice seriously, take the institutional failures seriously, and recognize that no tradition is exempt from human failure.

Sources

[[platform-sutra|The Platform Sutra]] of the [[huineng|Sixth Patriarch]]. Trans. Philip B. Yampolsky. Columbia, 1967. Source class: primary text.
Dōgen. Shōbōgenzō. (Multiple translations; Nishijima/Cross is the most complete in English.) Source class: primary text.
[[dt-suzuki|D.T. Suzuki]]. An Introduction to Zen Buddhism. Grove, 1964. Source class: book / classic Western introduction.
[[shunryu-suzuki|Shunryū Suzuki]]. Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. Weatherhill, 1970. Source class: book / contemporary practice manual.
Heinrich Dumoulin. Zen Buddhism: A History (2 vols., India and China; Japan). World Wisdom, 2005. Source class: book / definitive scholarly history.
Robert E. Buswell Jr. The Zen Monastic Experience. Princeton, 1992. Source class: book / scholarly study of Korean Sŏn.

Lenses still to grow

Dōgen as a person and philosopher in his own right.
Hakuin and the kōan curriculum.
Korean Sŏn as a major continuing tradition.
Vietnamese Thiền beyond [[thich-nhat-hanh|Thich Nhat Hanh]].
Western Zen institutional crises as a piece of contemporary religious history.
Zen and the arts — calligraphy, tea, ink painting, rock gardens, archery — the traditions in which Zen has been embedded.

What links here, and how

Inbound connections from across the wiki, grouped by lens and by relationship. These appear automatically — every entity page declares what it links to, and that data populates here on the targets.

Spiritual

part of

Bodhidharma the semi-legendary founder of Chan / Zen Buddhism; the first patriarch of the tradition by its own self-understanding
The Diamond Sutra the foundational text of the Chan / Zen tradition; the sūtra Huineng heard recited in the marketplace at the moment of his initial awakening
Huineng the Sixth Patriarch of Chinese Chan; the teacher through whom every continuing East Asian Zen lineage traces by its own self-understanding
The Platform Sutra the foundational scripture of Chan/Zen Buddhism; the only Chinese-composed text in the East Asian Buddhist canon given the title *sūtra*
Zazen the central contemplative practice of Chan / Zen Buddhism; the practice from which the tradition takes its name (*Chan / Zen* is the East Asian rendering of Sanskrit *dhyāna*, meditation)

instance of

Detroit Zen Center Korean Sŏn / Zen tradition; U.S. branch of Sudeoksa Temple

subset of

Dōgen the founder of the Japanese Sōtō school; one of the two principal Japanese Zen lineages, alongside Hakuin's Rinzai
D.T. Suzuki the principal English-language interpreter of Zen in the 20th century; his work shaped the Western Zen reception more than any other single voice
Hakuin Ekaku the principal reformer of the Rinzai school in 18th-c. Japan; the foundational figure of modern Rinzai Zen
Plum Village the principal continuing center of the Vietnamese Thiền (Zen) tradition outside Vietnam; a substantial Zen monastic community on Western soil
Shunryū Suzuki Sōtō Zen master who founded the most influential early American Zen institutions; the principal source of the Sōtō *shikantaza* tradition in the contemporary West
Soto Zen the principal Japanese Zen lineage, alongside Rinzai; distinguished by its emphasis on silent illuminating awareness and by Dōgen's distinctive philosophical articulation
Thich Nhat Hanh Vietnamese Thiền master whose Plum Village tradition is one of the most influential continuing Zen lineages in the modern world
Zen Peacemakers an engaged-Zen organization in the lineage of Bernie Glassman, who received transmission in the White Plum lineage from Taizan Maezumi Roshi

contains

Mahāyāna Zen/Chan is one of the principal contemplative schools to emerge from Mahāyāna

15 inbound links · 3 outbound